Game Of The Year - Other Publications

Just a brief summary of other publications' GOTY and other relevant awards.

EDGE

Game of the Year

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

• The two runners-up are: Dark Souls and Skyrim

Indie Game of the Year:SpaceChem (Runners-up: Bastion and Triple Town, which is not in the database)

Best Online Experience:Dark Souls (Runners-up: Portal 2 and Modern Warfare 3)

Gamespot

Game of the Year

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Interesting fact: Uncharted 3 and Zelda: Skyward Sword did not get a nomination. DiRT 3, Total War: Shogun 2 and Xenoblade Chronicles did.

Most Surprisingly Good Game:Skylanders

Best Story:To the Moon (nice for them to get the award)

Best Adaptation or Use of License:The Witcher 2 (Interesting, not just because Witcher 2 is considered an adaptation, but because it beat Arkham City)

Best Competitive Multiplayer:Battlefield 3 (Modern Warfare 3 did not get a nomination)

Song of the Year:Bastion

Best Fighting Game:The King of Fighters XIII (maybe it's because I don't follow fighting games that much, but I thought MK and Ultimate would split the awards)

IGN

Best XBOX Live Arcade Game:Bastion

Best PC Racing Game:Trackmania 2: Canyon

Spike Video Game Awards

Game of the Year

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Batman, Portal 2, Uncharted 3 and Zelda were the other nominees

Best Shooter:Modern Warfare 3

Best Multiplayer:Portal 2

Best Song in a Game:Bastion

Best Original Score:Bastion

Best Downloadable Game:Bastion

X-Play

Game of the Year

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

• Again, Uncharted 3 and Zelda miss the nominations. Saints Row The Third is in there.

Best Gameplay Innovation:Rocksmith

Best Multiplayer Game:Modern Warfare 3

Best Downloadable Game:Stacking

Best Art Direction:Batman: Arkham City (El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron got a nomination for this award)

It's probably going to be a lot of Skyrim.

@hidys: You're probably right. Wikipedia listed Portal 2 as Joystiq's GOTY but I can't find anywhere on their site that says such.

I can see why Uncharted 3 is getting left out of the nominations. I watched my friend play some of Uncharted 2 again and realized the last quarter of both games are exactly the same. So they probably got a been there done that vibe from the game.

Uncharted 3 probably get left out of nominations because for a lot of people it felt like Uncharted 2.5 (or more like 2.1 really), and most of the changes that were made to gameplay impacted it negativly, the shooting felt kinda bad (which has been fixed, but most people played it before the fix), the boring combat scenarios with armies of faceless generic suited guys which at times were frustrating, and finally the slightly weaker story (mostly the ending!) and less exciting or interesting setpieces compared to Uncharted 2.

Also The Witcher is originally a book series right? So it applies to best adaptation/use of license.

@Village_Guy: I think the books came out earlier than the games, but weren't the books created because they were making the game? I don't know. Still, the main focus is that it beat Batman: Arkham City in that category, which I thought was interesting.

@Winternet: Nah dude. The Witcher was a popular fantasy series in Poland long before the games got made :)

But yeah, I had also forgot that TW2 was actually an adaptation.

Uncharted 3 is definitely a case of been there, done that. BUT the quality is still so high that it's still one of the best games of 2011. However, the formula won't stand up a fourth time without at least SOME changes. Which is why I'm not too optimistic about Golden Abyss.

@Chronologist: Oh, had no idea.

@Jost1: I would argue that the formula has been in use two times. Uncharted 1 doesn't count. Same thing goes with Assassin's Creed series. First one doesn't count, Revelations is the third game relying on the same foundation.

@Winternet: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrzej_Sapkowski Here you go :D It appears the first one came out in 1990 (which was a short story collection)

@Winternet said:

@Chronologist: Oh, had no idea.

@Jost1: I would argue that the formula has been in use two times. Uncharted 1 doesn't count. Same thing goes with Assassin's Creed series. First one doesn't count, Revelations is the third game relying on the same foundation.

Regardless I think it's in danger of becoming formulaic to a fault. Like Modern Warfare 3 was.

@Jost1: What about Gears of War 3. I haven't played it, but, as far as I can tell, the formula of a Gears game is the same in all 3 games. Cover, big monsters, chainsaw dudes. I haven't seen people complain.

@Winternet said:

@Jost1: What about Gears of War 3. I haven't played it, but, as far as I can tell, the formula of a Gears game is the same in all 3 games. Cover, big monsters, chainsaw dudes. I haven't seen people complain.

Yeah it worked for a third time, but it's not gonna win any Game of the Year Awards this year.

Are you interpreting this as some kind of console war thing, I hope you're not!

@Jost1 said:

@Winternet said:

@Jost1: What about Gears of War 3. I haven't played it, but, as far as I can tell, the formula of a Gears game is the same in all 3 games. Cover, big monsters, chainsaw dudes. I haven't seen people complain.

Yeah it worked for a third time, but it's not gonna win any Game of the Year Awards this year.

Are you interpreting this as some kind of console war thing, I hope you're not!

And your hopes are met. I own zero consoles. The white in my name is there for some reason :D

I'm expecting about 90-95% Skyrim. 
 
 
Also, #lolatxplaysbestmultiplayergame

The Associated Press released its 2011 Top 10 list. Here is the link and here is the list:

1. Portal 2
2. Skyrim
3. Deus Ex
4. Bastion
5. Batman
6. Infamous 2
7. Zelda
8. Uncharted 3
9. Rayman Origins
10. Dead Space 2

Still no El Shaddai love...

@Video_Game_King said:

Still no El Shaddai love...

only el shaddai love there's gonna be is likely to be in the best looking games of the year (and honestly, not even that really) sorry :/

@Animasta:

Should I bring justice to this situation?

@Video_Game_King said:

Still no El Shaddai love...

You know what? I think I saw El Shaddai somewhere. Let me see . . hmm . . oh, oh yes. It got a nomination in Best Art Direction on X-Play's awards. Batman won that.

I'ma add it to the list.

@Winternet said:

@Video_Game_King said:

Still no El Shaddai love...

You know what? I think I saw El Shaddai somewhere. Let me see . . hmm . . oh, oh yes. It got a nomination in Best Art Direction on X-Play's awards. Batman won that.

What the fuck? (Because inflection does not come across in text (at least not in English), let me add that this statement is not in confusion, but in disapproval.)

@Winternet said:

@Jost1 said:

@Winternet said:

@Jost1: What about Gears of War 3. I haven't played it, but, as far as I can tell, the formula of a Gears game is the same in all 3 games. Cover, big monsters, chainsaw dudes. I haven't seen people complain.

Yeah it worked for a third time, but it's not gonna win any Game of the Year Awards this year.

Are you interpreting this as some kind of console war thing, I hope you're not!

And your hopes are met. I own zero consoles. The white in my name is there for some reason :D

There was also a 3 year gap between the Gears games, compared to the 2 of the Uncharted games. So they made it feel a little more fresh, also no other game handles like Gears in terms of shooting so unless people played Gears 2 non-stop it felt newish.

I am, quite honestly, shocked at Gamespot choosing Skyrim. Not that I don't like Skyrim (it is, frankly, my new favorite game ever), but  it isn't even close to their best-reviewed game this year (I know both Gears 3 and Dark Souls got higher scores). Yeah, sure, "everyone has to come to an agreement" and all that, but still...

I find it hilarious that MW3 didn't even get nominated for best multiplayer game at Gamespot.

@zombie2011: Like I said, I have not played Gears. All I can say is what I see in video. And in video they all seem very similar. Which is not a bad thing, if they are all amazing games.

@Winternet said:

@Jost1 said:

@Winternet said:

@Jost1: What about Gears of War 3. I haven't played it, but, as far as I can tell, the formula of a Gears game is the same in all 3 games. Cover, big monsters, chainsaw dudes. I haven't seen people complain.

Yeah it worked for a third time, but it's not gonna win any Game of the Year Awards this year.

Are you interpreting this as some kind of console war thing, I hope you're not!

And your hopes are met. I own zero consoles. The white in my name is there for some reason :D

I would personally say that Gears of War 3 did not work a third time, but most people (especially critics) seem to disagree.

I think Skyrim will win many places as it's the game that's easiest to agree upon. While I don't expect to see it topping many personal 2011 lists, it's got something awesome in it for everybody. Basically, Skyrim's biggest advantage as a game and as a contender is breadth; it allows for a wide range of experiences, and so that grants a wide range of players having a good time.

I just updated with the EDGE awards (not too hard to guess who won that) and the VGA (because why not).